


a little less war torn

by kitnkabootle



Category: Berena - Fandom, Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Surgery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9636431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkabootle/pseuds/kitnkabootle
Summary: What if something small had changed on the day Berenice Wolfe arrived at Holby City? What if Serena had gone in Raf's place? What if their entire meeting had been vastly different?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this is cannon divergent it will be looking at some of the same situations happening on AAU that happened to Bernie when she was on differing wards. 
> 
> I'm not going to train to be a doctor in order to write this fic so just roll with whatever cockamamie thing I come up with to manipulate this my way.
> 
> Please leave feedback if you like it because it will definitely make me excited/likely to continue.
> 
> For my LSL pals Daxton and Nova because they are my sparkly treasures and they're forcing me to do this.

Serena fumbled through the box on the seat of her car, taking care that all necessary patient files were safely tucked inside. The clock never seemed to stop when she left the doors of Holby City Hospital and last night had not been the exception. After three emergency surgeries, she’d left the hospital hours after her shift’s intended end time and spent the rest of the evening knee-deep in hospital policy and scheduling reports.

It wasn’t unusual in her now-empty family home to find herself spending nights with paperwork as her only companion, strewn across every surface, and her laptop a constant fixture on the kitchen table. Such was the life of a Deputy CEO, consultant general surgeon and department clinical lead. Of course, she did enjoy the job, and it made her feel needed, even if the only thing desiring of her attention was the latest round of budgets and expense reports.

Well, that and another distraction she’d taken up rather recently.

Robbie Medcalf, a police officer she’d let hang around a little past his welcome was spending the odd evening at hers, warming up takeaways and eventually her bed. They got on rather well and Serena did find the other bonuses were helpful at stress relief, but they didn’t have much in common beyond that.

She picked up the box and balanced it on the roof of her car as she shut and locked the door before gathering it back into her arms.

“Morning treats!” Robbie sprung up from behind her brandishing baked goods and coffee and she tried, thankfully successfully, to keep her eyes from rolling. He was sweet, surely, but honestly, surprising her at her place of work unannounced?

It was a bit much for a casual fu—

“Fancy skipping school with me today?” Robbie held the treats aloft and smiled at her. She couldn’t help but return it. He was like a little lovesick puppy. Sweet, but she didn’t need him piddling on her shoe whenever she turned around.

“Oh that’s very kind Robbie, but I have a very busy day,” she gestured by lifting the heavy box of paperwork he’d not yet offered to take from her.

The clue went unnoticed as he walked alongside, “Aww but we could have a good time, you and me. There’s a game on at the local, thought we could get lunch and some drinks later, spend the evening back at mine.”

Serena picked up the pace causing him to jog a little at her side through the lobby, “That would be nice, but I’ve just too many responsibilities here today.”

“Well, then maybe we could have breakfast,” he wiggled the pastries, “in your office? Before you get on to your big da—”

“Raf!”

The man was rushing by from AAU when Serena stopped him, deciding that the appearance of her friend and colleague was just the excuse she needed to get out of Robbie’s impromptu plans.

“Didn’t we have theatre together in 10 minutes?” She asked, a little too expectantly.

The lilting tone of her voice and her eyebrows raising dramatically were intended as a tip off for Raf to go along with the plan, but instead it went over the scotsman’s head entirely.

“Oh, no not with me. I’m off to meet a patient and an army lorrie.”

“An army lorrie?”

“Yes a Major Wolfe—”

“Major Wolfe!” Serena interrupted after allowing herself just enough time to catch the name of her would-be patient, a name that sounded altogether too familiar but she couldn’t place it, “Yes, oh God I almost forgot I was supposed to do that.”

“But we only just got the call—” Raf began in confusion but Serena didn’t give him a chance to work out any of the details.

“Oh Hanssen called on my way in,” she lied, “told me I was needed quite at once.”

“Really? But I thought you had theatre—” he began to ask; Serena’s glare was enough to stop any further lines of questioning.  
  
“Had my dates mixed up,” she thrust the box at Raf who took it without question, noting the sharpness of her tone.

She pulled off her scarf, hat, gloves and coat and laid them on top of the box, snatching Raf’s stethoscope from him instead, “Just put them on my desk.”

Robbie looked between them, almost as bewildered as Raf, “but what about breakfast?”

“I’m sorry today’s just not a good day, Robbie. Listen, I’ll call you.”

Serena rushed off before anything else could be said and disappeared out the hospital doors leaving two equally flummoxed men staring after her.

“What have we got?” Serena asked Guy Self and Oliver Valentine who were standing just outside in the arrivals area.

“Ah Mrs. Campbell, glad to see you.” Guy’s mildly condescending smile as ever-present as always.

“Yes we have a Major—”

Oliver Valentine was interrupted by Guy who completely disregarded him, “Major Berenice Wolfe, narrowly missed the explosion of an IED in Kabul, Afghanistan but the automobile turned over in a field and she’s quite severely injured.”

“Blimey,” Serena rubbed at the back of her neck, shaking her head at the story, “She’s lucky to be alive. Why’ve they brought her here to Holby?”

“The Army didn’t say, just that they were enroute and we were meant to meet them, prepared for every possible outcome.”

“Wait a minute—Major Berenice Wolfe? Isn’t she Britain’s leading frontline surgeon?” Serena suddenly remembered why the name had seemed so familiar. She’d only just read an entire article on Major Wolfe’s many accomplishments in the field that had been published in one of her medical journals.

“The very same,” Guy all but sighed and Serena was surprised to hear awe in the man’s usually arrogant way of speaking.

A large green army lorrie roared around the corner and into the ambulance bay in front of them, screeching to a halt.

Two men dressed in fatigues jumped out of both driver and passenger seats and rushed around to the back, swinging open the the large doors and climbing up into the truck back.

“We’re losing her!” One of them shouted as two more men working over a stretcher pulled up the side rails and made short work of the wheels to support the bed as they lowered it to the ground.

Serena sprung to action, stethoscope pressing into the injured woman’s chest as she pulled back her eyelids and looked into almost jet black eyes. The monitor perched on the end of the bed beeped and she glanced at it to check the readings, “BP’s through the floor. Get her to AAU!”

Serena began CPR as they frantically rolled the cart through the lobby towards the department, taking in the woman’s appearance as she did so. She was filthy, her uniform still dusty from the Afghanistan desert and her hair unkempt and matted with blood. She looked to be around her own age, but ghastly pale and wearing a pained expression that marred what was unquestionably a very beautiful face.

When the bed rolled through AAU’s doors, Serena began barking orders immediately, “Prep the team for theatre! Mr. Self, Mr. Valentine I need both of you with me. Let's do this now!”

The sound of the monitor beeping in distress carried the full cavalcade of nurses, anaesthetist, surgeons and one rapidly declining Berenice Wolfe through to the operating theatre.

\--- 

To be continued... 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always to Dax for the beta corrections and Nova for the moral support. Can't do this without you two!
> 
> So yeah, again - I'm no doctor. I do very mild research to figure out the medical jargon parts so if you ever are in a surgeon's shoes, don't use my fanfic as a manual. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy. Your comments have made my day! :D And as promised, they inspired me to get this out there asap!

The theatre looked like a warzone once the team had assembled inside circling the bed that Major Berenice Wolfe lay upon. Serena watched while a nurse cut the Major’s clothes right down the middle and pulled the fatigues apart, another nurse draping a plastic apron over her own blouse and tying it in place.

They worked quickly after intubating and Serena was the one to open, sliding the scalpel down Berenice’s pale skin. It was a rupture in the abdomen causing the drop in Berenice’s vital functions and Serena had to find the bleed, fingers disappearing into a pool of blood, and repair it quickly. Once it was done, an ultrasound on the Major’s neck found a pseudoaneurysm coupled with the army medic’s diagnosis of a C5 C6 spinal fracture. Guy Self and Oliver Valentine argued about the order in which to repair the damage until Serena sharply directed Guy to ‘get on with it’.

As Guy was in the middle of the spinal repair, Berenice’s stats began to plummet and Oliver took control with Guy holding Berenice’s neck steady as he opened her chest. It was rare when things took such a drastic turn with three surgeons all working carefully and quickly to repair damage, but it appeared that nothing was going to go easy on them for this particular surgery. Putting Berenice on bypass had steadied her but once she was removed from it, they were back in failure.

“Clear!” Oliver shouted and both Guy and Serena lifted their hands back as he brought down the paddles to shock her. When there was no change, he repeated it again but it continued to have no effect.

“Ms. Campbell can you—”

No further instructions were needed and Serena nodded, sliding her hand around Berenice Wolfe’s heart and pumping it for her in time. The seconds seemed like hours and the room went deathly quiet save for the persistently beeping machine measuring her output. Finally, she felt Berenice’s heart begin to beat on its own and Serena withdrew her fingers, eyes finding Oliver’s for reassurance.

He nodded, a smile evident in his eyes as he looked back down to the woman on the bed before them, “I think we’ve done it.”

Serena let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

\---

As she pulled off the bloodstained plastic apron and left the theatre, Serena began to relax the tension from her shoulders. Holding another human being’s heart in her hand made her feel unusually reflective about the passing of time and her own mortality. It could all be gone so quickly and so unexpectedly.

It made her think about Robbie then about Edward. Men that had eaten up weeks, months, years of her life. Was that what it was meant to feel like? Measuring her romantic dalliances by how much time they had stolen from her? Hardly the talk of true love everlasting.

A well-dressed man stopped her on her way to the locker room.

“Excuse me?”

Serena stopped and looked from the hand he’d placed on her forearm, to his worried face.

“Yes?”

“I’m Marcus Dunn, I think you’ve been operating on my wife Bernie Wolfe.”

“Ah yes, Mr. Dunn,” Serena softened her expression in empathy, “she is stable right now. I wish I could tell you more, but we won’t know the extent of the damage until she awakens.”

“Thanks,” Marcus nodded and squeezed her forearm once before withdrawing his hand, “How bad was it?”

Serena let out a breath and shook her head, “Her injuries are severe. She had extensive damage from the accident.”

“What was the damage— specifics I mean?” he rubbed the palm of his hand across the scruff of his chin, “I’m a surgeon myself.”

Serena’s eyebrow rose in surprise. A pair of married surgeons. Flashbacks to Edward’s drunken mishaps on her ward flooded back to her but she easily suppressed them.

“She came in with a spinal fracture, cervical disk trauma and a pseudoaneurysm. We repaired a bleed in her stomach which stabilized her, but the pseudoaneurysm began to rupture during the spinal repair and we had to use electrical cardioversion. It may have jolted her neck during the process. We won’t know for certain if there is any—if she’s lost mo—if she’s—”

“Paralyzed.”

“Yes.”

Marcus let out a long weary sigh and hung his head forward, “That’d kill her, that would.”

Serena pressed her lips together, her voice gentle, “Mr. Dunn there’s no reason to believe she is paralyzed until we diagnose it. For now, if you’ll just take a walk, get some fresh air, take your mind off it. Someone will come collect you a soon as we know more.”

Marcus met her eyes again and nodded firmly before heading off down the hall.

Serena made her way into the locker room and dropped down on the wooden bench expelling another long breath.

\--

Finally clean and having changed into scrubs, Serena entered the private recovery room that Berenice Wolfe was resting in. A nurse had informed her that she had awakened an hour before and had just dozed off again. She lifted the chart at the end of the bed and took down the readings first from the monitor before pumping sanitizer into the palm of her hand and checking the woman’s dressings to be sure there were no hemorrhages.

Lou popped in the room briefly to put down a large basket filled with— _grapes?_

Serena wondered if it had been Marcus who’d sent them, but Lou didn’t seem to know and merely shrugged her shoulders before heading back out on the ward.

By then Berenice had begun to stir, eyes opening slowly to the light in the room. Serena’s fingertips were at the dressing on her neck, stroking delicately along the rim of the tape to be sure everything was in order.

“Good afternoon Major,” Serena smiled down at her, seeing the woman’s deep brown eyes for the first time without the sharp spark of trauma haunting them.

“Bernie's fine.”

The woman’s voice was deeper than Serena had expected, roughened from anesthetic but kinder and softer than she’d imagined would emanate from a member of the British forces.

“Alright Bernie. I’m Serena Campbell.”

“It’s a pleasure.”

They looked at one another for a trifle longer than was usual for doctor/patient rapport and Serena cleared her throat a little, averting her eyes to the clipboard.

“You’re recovering remarkably well so far,” she eyed the chart and moved around to the foot of the bed. Lifting the covers back she traced the metal side of a sterilized instrument along the curve of Bernie’s foot. Bernie moved her toes and ankles ever so slightly and Serena felt relief that she could strike paralyzation from the possible outcomes of the surgery.

“Marvellous,” she whispered below her breath, mostly to herself, and when she looked up Bernie was smiling back at her.

“Right, well, I’ll just go tell your husband the good news.”

Serena returned the clipboard to the box at the end of the bed and turned back towards the door when Bernie’s voice stopped her, “Ms. Campbell?”

“Serena, Bernie.” she turned to face Bernie, fingers still splayed on the half-opened door.

“Serena. I would really appreciate it if you could leave it an hour before telling Marcus.” Bernie’s voice was quiet and she looked uncharacteristically small and fragile for an army major.

Most patients she’d treated were quick to ask for relatives as soon as they were conscious. It was not as common to see a patient turn a relative away, let alone one who had come very close to dying.

Serena nodded, “Of course.”

Bernie’s lips turned up at the corners, “Thank you,” she whispered.

\--

Exactly an hour later, Serena popped her head into the waiting area and Marcus followed her to Bernie’s room. She entered first and held the door for him, watching Bernie for her reaction as Marcus hurried to stand at the bedside.

“Hello you,” Bernie said as he took her hand and kissed the back of it next to the line of her IV. Then he leaned over, stroked his hand through her hair and brought his lips to hers.

Serena averted her eyes, looked to the ceiling then at the floor until she heard him speak, “I’ve missed you so much, Bernie.”

“It’s been a long time.”

Serena felt she was intruding so she opened her mouth to excuse herself but it seemed she was forgotten anyways.

Marcus was bent over Bernie one arm possessively circling her head, “I’m glad we have you back now for good.”

“They’ve offered me a full commission, 10 more years.”

Marcus extracted himself and straightened to his full height, “And you said no.”

“I’m needed, Marcus.”

“You’re needed here Bernie!” Marcus’s voice raised unpleasantly and Serena startled at the harshness.

Bernie didn’t answer, merely pressed her lips together and looked away.

“Bern, after all of this, all you’ve given up, how could you even think of going back? This is our chance to finally be together! To have the life we always wanted to have.”

“Marcus,”

“No Bernie,” Marcus snapped, finger stabbing at the air to make his point, “sooner or later you have to put your family before that God forsaken—” he shook his head, seemingly trying to find the words and when he did they were delivered in exasperation, “I can’t believe I have to beg you to stay. _Twenty_ _five_ _years_ —”

Serena didn’t stay to hear the rest. Instead she pushed the door open and slipped silently out onto the ward.

\--

Fifteen minutes later as Serena stood at the nurse’s station sorting through files, Marcus came bursting out the doors from Bernie’s room. Serena jumped at the suddenness and watched as he stalked by on his way out of AAU.

_Don’t get involved, don’t get involved, don’t get involved…_

Naturally, Serena had to get involved.

“Mr. Dunn!” she called out, following him as closely as she could without running. Serena Campbell made it a point never to run. Instead she hardened her voice and used the skills she was blessed with, “Mr. Dunn, if you’re quite finished. I have some details to go over with you.”

Marcus turned toward her, shoulders rounded forward in a feral way that Serena never cared for in men. He waited until she caught up to him in the corridor, angrily drawing breath through his nose in spurts.

“Mr. Dunn, your wife has had a very close call today. Don’t you think you might try and understand what she might be going through?”

“Why is it always what _she’s_ going through? I’ve been going through this for years. Never has any time for us, me or the kids. In fact, I think she’s more at home on tour than she’s ever been in our place.”

“Be that as it may, she has a long road of recovery ahead. She won’t be going anywhere for awhile, and she’s much too weak to do it all on her own.”

“I’m not being unreasonable am I? Asking her to make a choice between her family and the army. After all this time? After all the time I’ve wasted waiting, hoping she’d come home.”

“I think it’s unwise to keep a woman from something she well and truly wants. If you make her choose, you’ll never be the one she picks.” Serena’s voice softened as she spoke, “You need to decide if you’re willing to ask her what she wants and be brave enough for the answer.”

Serena thought of the woman in the bed, whose whole world had suddenly been turned on its ear, “Either way, Mr. Dunn. She’s not well and it’s going to be a long road ahead. I should hope twenty five years of marriage warrants a special dose of support at a time like this.”

Marcus pressed his lips together and listened until Serena had finished.

“Let’s try again?” Serena asked, gesturing back towards the ward and Marcus bowed his head, finally giving in.

As they made their way back onto AAU, Serena kept in step next to Marcus, “That was sweet by the way, sending your love the grapes when she can’t have the vino.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Bernie had a delivery this morning, a grape basket, I just thought—”

“Probably an army thing.”

Serena didn’t say anything else, just held the door to Bernie’s room open for Marcus and let it close behind him.

\---

_To be continued_


End file.
